NEBRASKA REPUBLICAN SENATOR WON’T SEEK RE-ELECTION

Lawmaker says he wants ‘quieter time’ to focus on family

Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska announced Monday that he will not seek re-election in 2014, saying he wants a “quieter time” to focus on his family following a busy political career that included stints as governor and President George W. Bush’s agriculture secretary.

The Nebraska Republican announced that he was retiring from the Senate after one term. He said he and his wife, Stephanie, had decided that the time had come to end a public career that has spanned more than half of his life.

In an interview, Johanns said he and his wife — a former state lawmaker — had endured a combined 16 primary and general-election campaigns together. They held eight different offices over the course of 32 years.

“That’s enough,” Johanns said. “We just felt, both Steph and I, that it was time. We always said we’d know when it was time. And it was time.”

Johanns, 62, joined the U.S. Senate in 2009 and did not appear to face any re-election threat. He served as agriculture secretary under Bush and was Nebraska’s governor from 1999 to 2005.

Johanns faced a health scare during his first year as a senator, undergoing surgery in March 2009 after doctors found a spot on his left lung. No cancer was found, but doctors removed the lower left lobe of his lung as a precaution. Johanns was a smoker but quit more than 20 years ago.

His announcement came as a surprise to many GOP insiders. Several Republican officeholders praised Johanns for his collegiality and thoughtfulness in a deeply divided Washington. Johanns was a member of the “Gang of Eight” that tried to negotiate a federal deficit-reduction deal in 2011.

Although he began his political career as a Democrat, Johanns has made a name for himself as a staunch conservative since his election to the Senate in 2008.

In his first year in the Senate, Johanns voted with the GOP 94 percent of the time, including opposing the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. He opposed the 2010 health care reform law championed by President Barack Obama, calling it bad policy even after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 upheld it as constitutional.

But unlike many Republicans, including Fischer, Johanns publicly backed former Sen. Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense.